


Defeating the Monster

by strawberriesandtophats



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 03:39:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8271247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberriesandtophats/pseuds/strawberriesandtophats
Summary: Wirt decides to face this newfound fear of lanterns.





	

There were lanterns everywhere.

Wirt felt he golden and red leaves brush against his coat as he walked to school with Greg bouncing beside him, talking about frogs and the fact that he’d managed to convince their mom to allow him to add molasses to his potato mash last night.  
Still, Halloween was over. Leaving a few lanterns out when everyone had taken away the pumpkins and most of the decorations was just forgetfulness or people trying to make the word a bit of a brighter place, right?

But the days passed, and most of the lanterns remained. So did the nightmares about The Beast.

Wirt felt his heart become lighter every time he saw that yet another lantern had disappeared from a doorstep or a window. It helped to have Greg around, smiling and talking about adventures and pointing at bluebirds in the trees. Sara sometimes sat down next to him in math class these days too, which was a definite improvement.

By November, there was only one lantern left.

It was hanging on one of the branches of the tall tree outside of the window on the high school’s third floor, swaying in the gentle breeze. Somehow, the yellow candles inside that particular lantern never seemed to burn out or stop dribbling onto the leaves below it through a hole in the bottom. It was made out of sturdy, blackened metal and would stay in place for weeks on end, until Wirt opened the window and looked up to see the bluebirds in the sky.

The teacher was listening to a classmate in the other end of the classroom, so there was not much chance of her paying attention to what he was doing, even if her eyes sometimes lingered on his face when talking about large bodies of water.  
His hand and the sleeve of his shirt immediately became soaked from the rain, but Wirt didn’t care. He reached out and grabbed the lantern and put it down on his desk. The classroom was silent, and Wirt was dimly aware of the teacher closing the window with a soft thud. 

He opened the little door, burning his palms on the hot wax that slid out of the lantern as he blew out the flames. Smoke wafted towards the ceiling, and Wirt scraped the wax off his red palms as the students around him began to chatter amongst themselves.

“If that lantern had fallen out of the tree it might have burned down all the trees around the school,” Sara whispered to him as she sat down in her seat. The teacher hurried back to her desk and cleared her throat before continuing the lesson.

Wirt put the lantern on the windowsill and left it there at the end of the day. There were no more nightmares, only dreams about boats and taverns and singing frogs.


End file.
